Bruce looking for firepower

01 May 2009 03:24

Wigan boss Steve Bruce will be looking to add more of an attacking threat to his team in the summer.
The Latics are not big scorers despite being comfortably safe from the relegation zone, and have only scored in half of their 14 matches since the turn of the year.
They will be looking to break this trend with a win against Bolton on Saturday, whilst also trying to shore up a defence that has become leaky in recent weeks.
"You don't have to be Einstein to work out where we are short at the moment," said Bruce.
"If you look at the table for goals scored, we need to improve that.
"Last week in the first minute we hit the bar and in the last minute we had two off the line; it was just not going to be our day."
Wigan's league position this season is down to their solid and organised defence, but it has recently conceded four goals against Everton and Arsenal and two goals against Blackburn last week.
Bruce was angered by the manner of the goals conceded against Rovers and is looking to get back to the defence that started the season so well.
"What disappointed me was we conceded against two set-pieces; although they are a big part of the game, we had tried to plan against that all week.
"We had enough to win the game but, as always, if you don't score a goal, you leave yourself open.
"We need to get back to what has got us in the position we are in. We don't score too many goals, but we don't concede many either."
Bruce feels Wigan will have learnt from the Blackburn match as they prepare to face a similar outfit in Bolton.
"We hope we can turn it around but we have to defend properly because we know what to expect from a decent Bolton team.
"Goalscoring has been our Achilles heel but we have prided ourselves on being a team that is difficult to play against, difficult to beat and has a sprinkling of talent in there.
"We don't score enough goals as a team but defensively, as a team, over the last 18 months, we have conceded 0.8 goals per game."